Pitchfork

Led by pedal-fixated guitarist Glen Johnson, Piano Magic have helped soundtrack late night excursions into the nether realms for over ten years now, championed by those who still long to shoegaze like it's 1991.

The band returns May 22 with the release of Part Monster on Massachusetts' Important Records. Marrying shoegaze's dreamy aesthetic with cinematic rockers, folk balladry, and other genre dabblings, Part Monster features production from Laika's Guy Fixsen, whose part in shaping the shoegaze sound (through working with My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Lush, Chapterhouse, Moose, Revolver, and more, as well as Stereolab and the Breeders) cannot be overstated.

Among its 10 tracks, Part Monster also includes a slightly souped-up version of last year's wonderful "Incurable", titled "Incurable (Reprise)", and the transcendent old-school gazer "Saints Preserve Us".

Piano Magic have a shoe-ful of European gigs lined up in the coming weeks-- most of them, appropriately, in boot-shaped Italy.

In related news, Johnson (who also records as Textile Ranch) and bandmate Cedric Pin recently put out an album on LTM as Future Conditional. Titled We Don't Just Disappear, it's available now in the U.S. via Darla. Sometime Piano Magic vocalist Angele David-Guillou also served up an album last month, on Peacefrog, as Klima.

Part Monster:

01 The Last Engineer
02 England's Always Better (As You're Pulling Away)
03 Incurable (Reprise)
04 Soldier's Song
05 The King Cannot Be Found
06 Great Escapes
07 Cities & Factories
08 Halfway Through
09 Saints Preserve Us
10 Part-Monster

Keyboard Prestidigitation:

05-16 Milan, Italy - Transilvania
05-17 Rome, Italy - Circolo Degli Artisti
05-18 Bergamo, Italy - Zero
05-19 Bologna, Italy - Estragon
06-09 Modena, Italy - Arti Vive Festival
06-15 London, England - The Museum of Garden History
07-01 Istanbul, Turkey - Radar Live Festival